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SecaucusJunction wrote: I have no idea why MTA doesn't just buy the line outright.$$$?
SecaucusJunction wrote:NS should really have no right to restrict anything. They run one turn job to Campbell Hall and a local as far as Middletown. 99% of the traffic is passenger traffic on the line. I have no idea why MTA doesn't just buy the line outright.A change in ownership on the line wouldn't impact the need for extra-dimensional clearances. For example, up around Boston, the MBTA owns the line through Winchester. In upgrading Winchester station to high-level platforms, they will be installing a gauntlet track for extra-dimensional Pan Am freights. It has probably been years since the last time a wide car came down this line, but unless Pan Am signs away their right to wide freight, that's just the way it is. CSX only just recently signed away their right to run wide freights east of Framingham, and now the MBTA is free to build high-level platforms in Newton without gauntlets or bypasses.
MTA lawsuit highlights problems at Metro-North stations for the disabled
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How many stations are accessible?
Accessibility, and whether or not a station needs to be made accessible, can sometimes boil down to a matter of opinion.
Daniel Brown, an attorney who represented the Westchester Independent Living Center pro-bono in a 2014 lawsuit that forced Metro-North to build an elevator at the Port Chester station, said the ADA only mandates that key stations be made accessible.
The three largest stations in the system — Grand Central Terminal, Stamford and White Plains — are. Many of the smaller stations are not.
The law can force them to become accessible if changes, like a new staircase, are made to the station or if significant upgrades are made, but the thresholds are not always clear and sometimes have to be sorted out in the courts.
"It's been many, many years since the ADA and there's been a lot of construction going on," Brown said. "If you ask me, there are a lot of stations that should be accessible, but are not."
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BostonUrbEx wrote:I assume that would be the only guantlet track in Massachusetts, certainly on the MBTA CR system. Does MN use gauntlet tracks to solve the high/wide issue?SecaucusJunction wrote:NS should really have no right to restrict anything. They run one turn job to Campbell Hall and a local as far as Middletown. 99% of the traffic is passenger traffic on the line. I have no idea why MTA doesn't just buy the line outright.A change in ownership on the line wouldn't impact the need for extra-dimensional clearances. For example, up around Boston, the MBTA owns the line through Winchester. In upgrading Winchester station to high-level platforms, they will be installing a gauntlet track for extra-dimensional Pan Am freights. It has probably been years since the last time a wide car came down this line, but unless Pan Am signs away their right to wide freight, that's just the way it is. CSX only just recently signed away their right to run wide freights east of Framingham, and now the MBTA is free to build high-level platforms in Newton without gauntlets or bypasses.
BandA wrote:I assume that would be the only guantlet track in Massachusetts, certainly on the MBTA CR system. Does MN use gauntlet tracks to solve the high/wide issue?Nope, no gauntlets on MN. I guess the remaining freight customers just don't take over-dimension loads.
